Big Fish
2003 · Directed by Tim Burton
Original language: English
- adventure
- fantasy
- drama
The story
Throughout his life Edward Bloom has always been a man of big appetites, enormous passions and tall tales. In his later years, he remains a huge mystery to his son, William. Now, to get to know the real man, Will begins piecing together a true picture of his father from flashbacks of his amazing adventures.
What it’s like
Warm, saturated storybook color gives way to muted, washed-out greys and browns whenever the film returns to the present, so the whole thing feels like a bedtime tale being retold by a tired man in a hospital-adjacent house. Tim Burton's frames are carefully composed and theatrical: the Alabama town of Ashton blooms in sunflower yellows and candy pastels, with a giant's fields, a glowing mermaid's pool, and a circus of Spectre-like wonders rendered in fairy-tale unreality. Ruffled music by Danny Elfman swells and tinkles with whimsy, and the mood moves easily between wistful and comic. The rhythm is loose and episodic, each tall tale a self-contained vignette that drifts into the next, which suits a slow, unhurried evening. Emotional tone is tender and bittersweet, following a stubborn, charming father and a skeptical son slowly learning to hear the stories as love. Violence is minimal and mostly cartoonish, with no gore; the sharpest fear comes from a fleeting witch and some eerie imagery. For people who want a gentle, whimsical, quietly moving film about fathers, storytelling and the lives we invent for ourselves.
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